Youth Voices is a school-based social network that was started in 2003 by a group of National Writing Project teachers. We have found that there are many advantages to bringing students together in one site that lives beyond any particular class. Students are invited to join Play Youth Voices to learn more about being a power user of the site. Teachers will also find tasks to support them in their use of the site.

Task Discussion

My strategy for getting students writing letters to the next mayor of NYC began with having them focus on the issue that was most important to them. As residents of the Bronx, they had many things to say about stereotypes about living in the Bronx, but also the realities.

Students tend to prefer the creative route, so I used this natural tendency to begin. We were reading and writing poetry and I asked students to think about poetry in the world. We read example letters to the editor to read about how the general public writes an open letter. I had students look at the types of topics, the use of voice, style, and so on. This helped students to see just how people get their voices out into the world.

To have students begin their own writing about issues, I first asked them to brainstorm issues in their lives and/or their communities that were important to them. After that, I asked them to choose the issue that was, to them, the most meaningful. For the next step, students wrote poems about the one issue that stood out to them. To bridge genres--from writing poems to writing letters--as a class, we discussed how these issues could be addressed and by whom. In discussing who could make a difference in addressing their issues directly, I discussed the next mayoral race in NYC. Students visited the websites of the potential mayors, read about their issues and selected a mayor/issue who does or does not focus on their issue. After which, they wrote a poem about their issue. This step was meant to help them really get their emotions out about their issue and share these with the class. Later steps took students deep into the writing process of brainstorming the details about their issue, creating an outline (of what they want to say first, second and third), writing multiple drafts, share their writing, revise their writing, post on Youth Voices, comment on their work and further revise.

One thing I would do differently is to have students read more models of letters to different kinds of audiences.

If you have already started working with students on Letters to the Next Mayor:

How did you get it started? What were the things you did to prepare them? What did you notice students needed? What was - or could have been -helpful to you or them?

I used letters to the next mayor as a final writing piece with my credit recovery students at Bronx Lab HS. For my suspension site students I had them do it as a research project. I used the guides to prepare them and also used some of my students previous work as mentor text to show them how their letters shouild look. So I used the guides with the mentor text. For the Bronx Lab students I used a short introductory from the NY Times on all the candidates and discuss their agendas

How do you imagine starting the process in your class? What supports or activities do you imagine using or needing?

I imagine starting the process in September to jumpstart the implementation of Youth Voices with my middle school students. Nearer to the election, will make the subject more topical for my students and will make it more of an authentic learning experience as i am sure that it will be a daily topic in the news media. We also plan to have significantly more technology equipment in September which will make the implementation much easier to accomplish. That said, I have shared my experience with Youth Voices with my administratorsand they are excited about it and see it as a great tool for engagement for our middle schoolers. We are also beginning to work on project-based learning modules for the school so I see Youth Voices as an integral part of this transformative model. The depth and breadth of Youth Voices still continues to amaze me so I see this as just the beginning of my journey with Youth Voices and not the end.

I began the Letters to the Next Mayor of New York City project in late March, and, as I've written in a previous post, I designed the assignment to be the culminating task from an in-class project. I had students do the following:

1. Work with a small group to do research on one of the mayoral candidates.

2. Create a campaign poster featuring that candidate.

3. Participate in a Gallery Walk featuring all of the campaign posters for the candidates and choose the one they feel they would most likely vote for.

4. Choose an issue of injustice in New York City, research it, and write a letter to their favored political candidate proposing a solution for that issue.

I have about six students who have completed a first draft. What those students need to do now is to revise their letters for content, proofread, and add the two references I asked for if they have not already included them.

The rest of my students need to finish their research about their topic and write the letters. Posting them will be the easy part!

This is the start of an amazing event on Youth Voices! One feature that was not possible when NWP did Letters to the Next President was the ability to comment on each other's letters. On Youth Voices this is now not only possible, it is encouraged as part of the richnes of the experience. Through their posted letters, students will be reaching other students with opinions and ideas to share. There will be agreement, argument, deep understanding - and a community of student voters and future voters! Please join us!

We would like as many schools and students to participate as possible.How can we help? What do you or your colleagues need? Please use the space here in P2PU as a place for teachers to collaborate on the work as it is planned and as it takes shape in their classrooms. We will work together to share experiences, resources and build this project together.